Leonardo Padura - Havana Gold

“And you say that was on Monday or Tuesday?”

“I think it was Monday when she finished early. You can check that.”

“Lissette was killed on Tuesday. You didn’t see her again?”

“I swear by my mother that I didn’t, lieutenant.”

“Where did Lissette fish her Mexican boyfriend out from? Mauricio, you said?”

“I’m not too sure, lieutenant. I think she met him in Coppelia or somewhere nearly. The guy was a tourist and she picked him up. But that happened some time ago.”

“So who was her current boyfriend?”

“Lieutenant, that’s anyone’s guess. I hardly saw her, I’ve got another girl, a little cracker…”

“But she was going out with a forty-year-old, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t her boyfriend,” and Pupy smiled at last. “He was just one of her regulars. I told you, she was a whore.”

“Who was he, Pedro? Did you know him?”

“Of course I do, lieutenant, he was the headmaster at Pre-Uni. Didn’t you know?”

“I’ve come for a coffee,” declared the Count, and Fatman Contreras smiled from an armchair tried and tested by heavyweights.

“The Count, the Count, my friend the Count, so it’s a coffee, is it?” he asked, and against all the odds he brought his enormous landlocked whale of an anatomy to its feet, while cheerfully holding out a hand maliciously intent on dislocating the Count’s fingers. Was it his only ponderous trick? The lieutenant made the most of his masochism and let himself be tortured by Captain Jesús Contreras, head of the Department for Foreign Currency Investigation.

“Hell, Fatman, let go, will you?”

“Not seen you for some time, my friend.”

“No, but I missed you a lot. I even wrote you a couple of letters. Didn’t you get them? People are right when they say the post is shit.”

“Pack it in, Conde, what are you after?”

“I told you, Fatman, a coffee. Apart from that I’ve brought you a little present wrapped in cellophane. So you know you’re not the only bearer of presents around here.”

Then Fatman laughed. It was a unique show on earth: his general flab, paunch, the obese tits of a transgressor of the three-hundred pound threshold, began to dance to his guffaws, as if flesh and pap were only loosely attached to a distant bone structure, and it might be possible to witness a full striptease that would uncover the hidden identity of a skeleton concealed under three hundred and twenty pounds of flesh and fat. Watching him laugh, the Count always thought about the strange, predestined relationship between the Fatman’s surname and his figure: he was simply Contreras, a round, chubby, voluminous and dense contrarian.

“Hey, Conde, nobody has given me a present since I was seven. Shit, seven at the very most.”

“But do you or don’t you have any coffee?”

Contreras was going to set off his laughter again but restrained himself.

“I always have some for my friends. And it’s still hot.”

He rolled, rather than walked, towards his desk drawer and extracted a half-full glass of coffee.

“But don’t drink it all, remember I’ve used up my ration.”

The Count took a more than generous sip and an alarming look of despair spread over Fatman’s critical face. It was the best coffee you could drink at headquarters, specially sent to Captain Contreras from Major Rangel’s strategic reserves. Before returning the glass, the Count had another swallow.

“Hey, you, that’s it. Look at that… Well then, what can I do for you?”

“No, I’ve got something for you. A three-and-a-half litre Kawasaki that came from who knows where, purchases from the diplo shop and an almost definite currency swindle. He’s a real joy. I’ve got him in my office and he’s so ripe he’s about to fall from the tree. I’ll make him a present to you on condition that you hold on to him for a while because I’ve not done with him yet. Like the idea?”

“I like it,” replied Fatman Contreras, who could contain himself no longer: he let his laughter rip and the Count thought one day he’d bring the walls down.

“Go on, push, come in,” thundered the voice when the Count put his hand on the door handle. The bastard can smell me, thought the lieutenant as he pushed on the door’s frosted glass. Major Antonio Rangel swayed apathetically in his revolving chair and looked pleased, against all expectations. The Count sniffed: a delicate scent of fine, young but well-cured tobacco floated on the air. The Count glanced down: a long, olive-coloured cheroot was languishing on the ashtray.

“And what is that?”

“A Davidoff 5000, what did you think?”

“I’m happy for your sake.”

“I am for yours.” The major stopped swaying and picked up the cigar. He sucked on it as if it were ambrosia. “You see, I’m in a good… Where the hell did you get to? Or have you gone freelance? You do know I serve a purpose here?”

The Count sat down opposite the major and tried to smile.

Rangel demanded to know each step taken in each investigation by each subordinate, particularly if the subordinate happened to be Mario Conde. Although he had more confidence in the lieutenant’s abilities than in his own, the major was afraid of him. He knew the Count’s devious ways and tried to keep him on the shortest possible leash. The Count thought of a couple of jokes right away and decided he might as well try one out: “Major, I’ve come to ask for early retirement.”

The Boss looked at him for a moment and, without flinching, returned his cigar to the ashtray.

“Ah, so that was it,” he replied quietly with a yawn. “Go down to personnel and tell them to get the papers ready and I’ll sign them. It will do my blood pressure good. I’ll finally be able to work without the stress…”

The Count smiled, deflated.

“Fuck, Boss, can’t even joke with you now.”

“You never could!” the Boss bellowed. “I don’t know how you dare. Hey, Count, I really would like to know why the hell you joined the force?”

“I only answer that kind of question in the presence of my lawyer.”

“To hell with you, Roman law and the Society of Lawyers. How’s the case going? It’s Saturday already.”

The Count lit his cigarette and looked at the clear sky through the office window. Would you never see clouds through that window?

“Slowly. We’ve just interrogated one of the suspects, Pupy, a wheeler-dealer who was the girl’s boyfriend. For the moment I don’t think he was involved in her death, he’s got an alibi with too many witnesses, but he confirmed two things that give this rumba a new tune: the teacher was a hot number, as he put it, quicker at getting a Colt out than Billy the Kid, and she was having an affair with the head teacher at Pre-Uni, who’s now the second suspect. But there’s something odd in all this. The forensic says the girl’s last sexual contact, just before she was killed, was with a young twenty-something, who belongs to the blood group O. And Pupy has this kind of blood… The head is in his forties and might be the person who had it off with her five or six hours earlier. But if it’s true, as it seems likely, that Pupy didn’t see her on Tuesday night because he was out with a motorbike gang in the Havana Club in Santa María, and wasn’t the last to have it off with her, who was? And if Pupy didn’t kill her, who did? The head’s number is in this raffle, but one thing doesn’t fit: the party that night, the drinking and the pot smoking. I’m not a fan of the headmaster but he doesn’t seem one to be in the thick of that. Though they could have killed her after the party… What do you reckon, Boss?”